How sweet it is

Spring is in the air, and I’ve been positively infected by it these last few weeks. I’m feeling the need to do silly things, like re-acquaint myself with the outdoors, wear loud-coloured clothes, buy lots of fruit, inappropriately harass the hubby, and take long lunches at work. It’s rebel season. Time to get awkward with strangers and make career-limiting moves at work.

In the midst of all that, WoW’s taken a back seat. I find it hard to concentrate on one thing for more than 5 minutes at a time, so raiding and heroics grinding (which I had firmly started doing on my DK) is not really where I want to be right now. Outside of weekly raid nights — that last of which, I might add, I was blissfully brain-AFK for and somehow miraculously managed to get through on pure finger/mouse memory — I’ve been suspiciously MIA…

Until last night, that is.

Less WoW time doesn’t mean no WoW time — it just means less hardcore WoW time. I had a few hours to spare and wanted to absently dick around online while listening to music, so I hopped onto Argent Dawn and loaded up my little SAN-US alt. SaveTheFails did the same, actually, and we met up at Exodar to do some questing.

It was one of the quietest, most satisfying WoW evenings I’ve had in months. Hands down.

The SAN-US guild is a gargantuan beast compared to my home guild. Like walking around in a mall or on a busy downtown street, you can lose yourself in the crowd and just be an observer. That’s actually very liberating. I get on and there’s already walls of text in the gchat — conversations I am not part of and don’t have to take part in if I choose not to. Some people say hello, but they do it out of politeness or habit; there are no expectations, as we have no established relationship and they don’t know who I am. There are so many people, in fact, that I had to stick SaveTheFails and Protflashes on my Friends list to make sure I’d be able to find them quickly without having to search for them in the guild roster.

But anyway. In the safety of this near-to-anonymous environment, I decided to work on an experiment: I am trying the hunter class. Sure, Amma’s itty-bitty right now and nothing more than an auto-attack bot, but someday I hope to grow her into something with specialized skills, something that can fill a slot that none of my other toons can… Like a tree stump remover. Sure, you could hack at that unsightly, ill-positioned tree stump with your shovels and picks, but that would take forever, you might even break your implements, you’ll make a mess of it, and it would be hard. Unless, that is, you just happen to have a tree stump remover.

See, I’ve made something of a WoW-career over the years out of doing stuff my class is sub-optimal for. Though challenging, digging tree stumps out with a butter knife and a detergent scoop really gives me time to wonder what other options exist… This mini-hunter of mine on SAN represents an opportunity.

Because I am an ass I had badges to spare, I loaded up my barely 2-minute old alt’s scraggly arms with shiny heirlooms and frostweave bags and guiltily moved her over to Argent Dawn to start her journey towards usefulness. Shoo shoo, little one! Go do what elves do and…frolic, I guess.

It was a blast lowbie questing last night. It’s hilarious to see all your old/raiding habits crop up as you play. I put Omen up and had to physically force myself to shut it off because…who cares? I caught my eyes sliding over to peek at Recount after we fought a monster that didn’t die in 2 hits. I looked at my heirloom bow and noted that there’s +Hit on it and thought “I wonder what the hit cap is at this level?”. I paid attention to my ‘buffs’. I stressed out over my pet’s positioning when I’d send it into combat. I waited for SaveTheFails (who has decided to try pally tanking on SAN) to ‘get threat’ on mobs before attacking.

And then I stopped. Outright. Well, not exactly; I stopped all of it except waiting for Save to hit first. I just can’t get past that one, no matter how hard I try. It’s cool, tank — I don’t want the mob(s), they’re all yours. Seriously.

Instead, I focused my attention on the experience itself. The quest, the scenery, hanging with Save — that sort of thing. I admired the look of the heirlooms I bought and blindly shipped over without really giving two hoots; I actually paid attention to the music I was listening to and sang out loud/zoned out every now and then (to my delight, when my senses returned, we were both still alive! What a novel thought: nothing is crucial at level 14); I stopped and typed out meaningless chatter and didn’t care about pats or how much time we ‘have left’ in the night; I stared at all the creatures ambling about Blood Watch and happily shopped for an entirely aesthetic alternative to my El Defaulto cat (I decided I like ravagers, BTW — trading fur for spikes FTW).

It was awesome. In a fresh way.

Despite all that, we wound up accomplishing a lot. By the time the night was over, we made our way back to Exodar, said good night in the gchat and logged. A few folks said good night back, which I am fond of (more so than the initial hello — don’t know why), and that was that.

6 comments

I absolutely *love* just messing around on alts, doing achievements, taking the time to appreciate the game rather than the grind. Makes everything seem fresh again, and fun! Gives you more time to get to know people, and listen to music, and heck, in my opinion, makes for more interesting blog posts because you know they’re going to be a little bit different :)

You’re right! It’s all about perspective, I think, and how people go about making things new again so that they can get more value out of stuff they’d otherwise just ditch. Heh. It’s almost like some kind of control system we use (in any area, not just WoW) to protect ourselves against loss or the harsh realities of actual, real change.

I’ve actually simplified even more on my hunter (who was also decked out in heirlooms from level 1) – I’ve decided not to stress about quests and being a completionist. It was hard to do at first but now it feels SO good.

I feel the same way, I’ve been feeling an itch to start a new character. I plan to make a night elf mage, and a worgen druid come Cataclysm. I have a level 3 shaman in SAN which I plan to level up some due to my “Leveling a shaman” post which will take some work. For now I am just content playing through the starting quests, and getting to know bloggers and readers alike. Thanks for the great read.